Frontline: Bradford 1984/85 | Victor Wedderburn

It was while walking our dogs in our local park in Shipley a few years ago that Victor Wedderburn told me about his photos. In the early '80s, and recently out of work, he has invested in a second-hand camera and began documenting the life around him in Manningham (with Lumb Lane, then known as the Frontline, giving the book its name). Frontline because of the animosity and hostility often faced by its African-Caribbean community, of which Victor was a part.

These are vibrant, colour-saturated photographs, which, taken in an age of black and white predominance, mark themselves out. Dapper gents chat outside local convenience store, young men and women lean from the windows of iconic eighties motors, hang out at the counter of Roots Record Shop, play pinball in the Perseverance Hotel and pose by the Young Lions Cafe. 

Developed in a darkroom made inside his broom cupboard at home, these photographs, of men and women living their lives in Bradford, are full of joy and bursting with defiant life. Rediscovered and brought to the fore during Bradford 2025, and culminating in a brilliant exhibition at Bradford's Loading Bay, this handsome book is a wonderful snapshot of a time and a people, that might otherwise have ben lost.

Size: 267 x 234mm (hardback)

Pages: 132 (86 colour reproductions)

Publisher: Trolley Books